Natural Sciences

The Natural Sciences is one of UNESCO’s Major Programmes with a core mandate to advance and promote science in the interests of peace, sustainable development and human security and well-being.

UNESCO acts as an advocate for science, a platform for generating and sharing ideas and standard setting, and promotes dialogue between scientists and policy-makers. It empowers and catalyses innovative initiatives in the field of international cooperation in science, in particular through networks and capacity development and high level technical expertise. UNESCO’s Natural Sciences implement major international science programmes aimed at promoting and supporting sustainable development in all its Member States.

The ‘S’ has been an integral part of UNESCO from its foundation in 1945. Over more than 70 years of existence, UNESCO has acted as a catalyst for the establishment of many, now leading scientific unions and bodies such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 1948) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, 1954) which saw the development of the Internet. Initiatives with far-reaching implications for sustainable human security and well-being – such as the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) or the Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) – were launched in the first thirty years of UNESCO’s history.